Makoto adjusted the angle of his scalpel’s electron beam, exhaled and made the cut. A fingernail-sized section of the airship’s graphene skin peeled away to join the miniature airship attached to its exterior like a soap bubble.

This was neither Makoto’s only bonsaiship nor his first. But it was and would always be the most precious to him. He had made the first cut nearly a year before, on the day of his husband’s death. It was a tribute to Reuven, nearly perfect, nearly complete.